


The Curious Statements of Martin Blackwood

by Stimmbits



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Growing Up, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:46:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23938627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stimmbits/pseuds/Stimmbits
Summary: It all starts with a boy in a garden and the spiders that sing to him at night. It ends with a man and his love who strays on the border of humanity. This is how he gets there.
Relationships: Implied Sasha James/Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	The Curious Statements of Martin Blackwood

**Author's Note:**

> A friend and I were discussing how many entities just can't get enough of one man, Martin Blackwood. And then I realized I have a research proposal to do so I wrote this instead. Rad. Just Super Rad.

The Web

The spiders in the garden sing a lonely tune that only Martin can hear. It drifts through the gap in his window, muffling his parent’s argument where he pretends he doesn’t hear his name come up. It starts with a hum of one multiplying again and again over itself until a chorus of a thousands tiny voices lull him to sleep. There are no words he can discern but a sense, a feeling. Home, comfort, and escape awaits him in the garden. He knows it’s the spiders because of the webs that cover his, and only his, window the morning after.

Even when Martin is too old at eight to be having imaginary friends, he looks forward to their lullaby in the days following his father’s disappearance. When his mother sits catatonic at their table staring at the door he had slammed shut behind him. Only sometimes looking up at Martin with a twist of fury and grief that he can’t keep eyes with. Suddenly hating the smile so much like his father's that he was born with. It is when she finally goes to bed that Martin hears their voices again, half begging him to leave already and join them. 

The library is just down the street from Martin’s home and the librarian is an older woman whose kindness is passive in nature. She doesn’t question where his mother is but does get out the blue stool so he can reach the top shelves.The books tell him everything he needs to know as he starts spending the long gaps of free time summer curses him with in his mother’s garden. She used to take great care of it when he was younger. His earliest memories of her in a sunhat laughing while pointing out and naming all the varieties of plants. But in the years since the change the weeds have choked out anything brave enough to try to live. Except for the spiders of course. 

They seem to seek Martin out instead of the other way around; crawling over his bare ankles and hands where they sit in the grass. The first few times he is frozen in fear staring at their bulging white backs and the name, “ _Steatoda nobilis_ ” comes to his lips with more ease than any other the books had taught him. But the spiders never bite. They sit on him and sway in the summer breeze, lead him to their secret nests and burrows, and teach him the best places to hide when it gets too much. When he wakes up to find a spider wrapping up a fat wasp that crept in during the night, he knows he has nothing to fear of them. 

The Eye

Tim and Sasha are nice enough to bully Martin out of his shoe box of an apartment for post-work drinks. Tim nearly spills his beer on Sasha’s head where she’s pressing her face against the cool table. “I just don’t get how this place can still be running with what she’s doing. Yesterday, I saw her and that goth weirdo debating on the best way to burn a book. Isn’t our job to save them?”

“Nothing about this job makes sense.” Sasha’s voice was exhausted. She was a year into her masters program and balancing a full time job on top of it. Martin was pretty sure she was sleeping in her office more than she was her own bed. “I studied archival science for going on five years just to work for a place where we don’t even date our recordings. I asked someone from art restoration if I could borrow their paints and they handed me regular oil paint and didn’t understand why that was a problem. I think Elias dropped a vase from 1855 down the stairs and he just laughed. No one wears _gloves_.”

Martin winced and patted her shoulder. “Well, maybe when you’re head archivist you can start changing things?” 

“Maybe. I just need my Masters and for Getrude to retire.” 

“Do you think she’s immortal?” Tim asks, draining the last of his glass. “It wouldn’t be the weirdest shit we’ve seen at that place.” 

“Knowing my luck? Probably.” 

Martin ordered Sasha another drink on his tab as Tim waved away their conversation for another. “What do you think about the new guy? I don’t think he’ll last a _week_.” 

Martin offered to walk Sasha home with Tim bugging off to get food. London was different than home but Martin liked it well enough. The way he could drift in the space between people. It was comforting to someone who grew up as, “The Blackwood Boy”, and whose entire familial history may as well have been written on his back. Here no one knew or cared who he was except for those who mattered. 

Sasha invites him in and they drink tea on her couch. She looks tired letting her head rest back, shutting her eyes. “I think I’m going to quit.” 

Martin dropped his teacup and thanked whatever it is above that the set is cheap and shatter proof. “What!?” 

“Not really, I don’t know. I think Elias will give the position to Tim or you over me. He won’t even dignify my request for a raise as it is.” 

“It’s a lot I know but-” The words stop because Martin doesn’t have a reason. Sasha could get a job anywhere with her transcripts and recommendations alone. But he didn’t want to lose Sasha. She was one of his first friends in the city and her and Tim have been nothing but kind to him. Had kept his secret when she figured out he lied about everything. Just laughed and promised she would cover for him if anyone got too nosy. “Why haven’t you left yet?” 

Sasha set her cup down and pulled her knees to her chest. She couldn’t meet his eyes. “Whenever I am about to do it something happens. I feel sick and nervous and I can’t bring myself to hand Elias my notice. I keep it in my desk drawer now thinking one of these times I’ll be strong enough. Or maybe he’ll get nosy and happen to stumble across it while looking for a transcript.” 

“...I think I know what you mean.” The tea was soaking into the plush white carpet turning it into a deep muddy brown. “My mother got sick about a year or so ago, and I almost left to take care of her since it could have been the end. But each time I thought up how to write my notice my mind would turn into a fog. I could barely think for a week straight until she suddenly got better. Just figured it was my nerves.” 

Sasha bopped her head before shrugging. “Who knows, but we should probably clean up that spill before it ruins my rug.” 

They don't talk about it again, Sasha doesn’t quit, and the new guy lasts longer than a week.

The Corruption

The smell of rot was really the worst part if there was a worst part of waiting to die. It crept under his door and made Martin's apartment reek of decay. He couldn’t even open his vents or windows to help air it out. Old Spice could only do so much it seems against a human honeycomb. Then Martin noticed the silence. It was so sudden that he jerked up off the couch and picked up the bat he had grabbed for protection. For two weeks straight he had heard her outside his door knocking, and now there was nothing but his own panting as panic started setting in. Who knew the sudden absence of fear could override the numbness that constant exposure would bring. He stared at the doorknob waiting for it to turn slowly like it always did in horror movies where the young hero watches in terror but always seems to get away before it opens. Martin had a single bedroom studio apartment with an open floor plan and cheap brittle furniture. He didn’t like his odds of being the young hero in this scenario.

But no doorknob turn came. Just Martin feeling very sweaty and trying to desperately get a control of his breathing before he started hyperventilating. For hours he sat on his couch, bat raised until his arms gave out waiting for something to happen. For a knock to tell him it was just another game she was playing. When the sun rose he stood up and walked towards the door reaching for the handle. His hand froze for a second before he muttered, “Ah, fuck it.” and threw it open to see...nothing. Nothing but the thin rug that covered the entrance hallway of his apartment. Martin stuck his head out to see his neighbor give a polite wave before letting herself in. He closed the door, got dressed in fresh clothing, and debated on a shower before deciding he wouldn’t turn his nose up at freedom just to get a surprise from his water pipes. 

Sasha and Tim were relieved to see him and confused why he never answered their texts. Apparently they had even showed up at his place, a thought that horrified him, but after banging on the door for twenty minutes his neighbor had threatened to call the cops on them for raising such a racket. 

“We kept explaining to him that we were worried about you and he waved us off. Said you were a ‘nice quiet boy who didn’t mix with our sorts’.” Tim adds with a snort. 

Sasha is on her desk, ankles crossed swinging her feet back and forth. There’s a pinch above her nose that she gets when she’s either worried or when she hears Jon adding his own input to archival footage. “I guess you were really out of it? I wish you had let us know you were that sick Martin. We could have done brought food or medicine or something. I know you don’t like us butting our heads into--” 

“Sorry guys, really, it was just a bad case of..something. We can talk later. I need to speak to Jon to _apologize_ for missing so many days.” Martin doesn’t tell them. He doesn’t know why but the words stay there locked behind the terror in his throat as he stares at his two best friends. Neither of them stop him as he makes his way downstairs into the head archivist’s private office. Jon, a blur in the foggy glass hunched over his desk with a recorder in hand. Martin had a statement to make.

The Spiral

“This way! No, this way! No--”

“Tim.” Martin bent over and caught his breath and watched as Tim disappeared into the fog again just to appear behind him. “It’s useless. We’re just going in circles.” 

“No, there has to be a way. There is no way this place is like this. It doesn’t make sense!” 

“What has made sense for the last, oh, twelve hours?” 

Tim stopped running and slid down the wall and Martin sat next to him. He leaned against Tim’s side. They were both shaking from what should be exhaustion but he knew the truth. “Do you think Sasha-” 

“Later. Please, can we talk about it later.” Tim’s voice was quiet and desperate and Martin shut his mouth. He never knew much about the two of them besides the terrible week after the Office Christmas Party, the time he caught them cuddling in a corner of the Archives during a lunch break, and when she went on about her new boyfriend how tight it made Tim’s shoulders go. But Tim didn’t mention Jon so they were quid pro quo on that front. 

Time went loose as they sat. Seconds, minutes, hours, days all seemed to slip by in the quiet. An odd acceptance of their situation formed and neither of them moved letting whatever world they were in feed. Martin was tired of running from death. Of fighting losing battles were the odds never seemed to be in his favor. It was nice to just sit and wait for it to come at him even if he didn’t have a bat. 

A bat. 

The snort made Tim jump and he nearly clocked Martin in the chin with his shoulder. “What?” 

“When Jane Prentiss was trying to get in my apartment all I had was a bat to protect myself.” Martin said it like it was the funniest thing he could think of. “Imagine that? Just a bat to beat off what? A couple thousand worms in a body? If she did anything I would have been dead.” 

Tim stared at him before he let out a little chuckle. Then the chuckle turned into a genuine, “Haha.” and then he was bent over howling tears going down his cheeks. They were crying and laughing and Martin thought the cramp in his side would kill him before whatever the creature with the bony hands would. 

“A bat.” Tim said, wiping his face. “What I would give for a bat right now.”

The Stranger

There’s puke on the floor and a gagging sound next to him, but all Martin can see is red. Blood seeping into the grooves in the desk and bits of what looks like white bone scattered everywhere. It looks like a beast had crushed whoever it was’ skull into nothing. One sentence keeps bubbling up out of the madness, out of the fever dream the day had been.

_“Jon did this.”_

“Martin, c’mon, we have to go.” Tim. It was Tim who was talking to him. Martin finds his hands and lets them drag him out of the office. They leave the Archive and Martin doesn’t remember how they went from point A to point B. One minute he’s in the hallway and the next he’s outside heaving in the bushes. 

_“Jon killed him. Jon killed him. Jon-”_

There’s an officer and she seems intent to tie both himself and Tim into the mess. Implying things that don’t make sense, and not liking that they can’t give a clear answer to where they were during the time of the murder. She grills them for hours until they’re finally let go. Tim leads the way back to his apartment with a silent agreement that neither of them want to be alone for the night. 

Tim’s place is simplistic and clean despite his bachelor status. The furniture is made of real wood and there’s an expensive looking entertainment center set up around the TV. Tim ignores it and goes straight to his liquor cabinet and has two shots down before offering Martin one.  
Martin turns it down with a wave. “I don’t like drinking when I’m upset.” A beat. “We have to talk about--” 

“Jon went nuts and killed some guy, Sasha is dead, and a fucking hippie locked us in a hell door. Done, talked about.” There’s another shot and the crack of glass on wood is sharp. 

“Tim. We don’t know if Sasha is dead. She could just be, I don’t know, kidnapped or sent away? Like those passages we were in. How long did you think it was?” Silence. “Weeks. Months? Yet we came out and it wasn’t even half a day here. She could be over there lost like we were.” 

“Did that look like a monster who plays games to you? Who sends its prey into a happy little portal until it gets hungry later? No Martin, she’s dead and so is our boss once they find him.”

Martin’s fist slams into the table so hard it sends the knick-knacks and books stacked on it tumbling to the floor. Tim drops the bottle in surprise and it shatters sending glass and whiskey everywhere. They stare at each other and Tim nods once, twice, and leaves with the bedroom door quietly closing behind him. Martin leaves for his own apartment.  
\---  
When everything is finally said and done, there is another funeral to be planned and flowers being sent to a hospital room Martin can’t bring himself to enter. When he meets Tim’s mom for the first time she doesn’t say anything as he apologizes and gives his condolences. The way she holds herself reminds him of Tim in a way. That silent need to protect and guard whatever someone has left. How it feels to lose two sons with no one to blame because the truth is worse than anything she could imagine. It was a close casket funeral.

The Lonely

Martin was never good at chess. He never bothered to remember the rules no matter how many times Tim and Sasha tried to teach him half tipsy at his apartment. Playing with Peter was nothing like that. For starters, Tim’s chess set had been a cheap pick up at the market that might have cost ten pounds if he was being generous. Peter’s was expensive, obviously, made of heavy hand made pieces with a matching wooden board that probably cost more than Martin’s rent. While his games with Sasha and Tim were for good fun with Peter it was like life or death. He wasn’t sure when this started; when his lunch times became this little routine of chess games, but he had to admit. He hated it.

“Check.” Peter knocked over Martin’s king with his pinkie and clicked the clock with his thumb. “Almost broke the ten minute mark this time, you’re making progress.” 

“What else is there to do?” Martin took back his fallen pieces and handed back Peter’s pawn, the only sacrifice he made the whole game. 

“Yes...which makes me wonder-” The pawn is put in front of the queen with a soft click. “What is Basira doing nowadays? She seems to be more active with Daisy around again.” 

Ah. It would be one of those days. 

Martin hummed and pushed forward a pawn not thinking much about it. The game didn’t matter anymore now that they were playing this new one. “She’s been helping Jon with statements. I think she likes it as a distraction.” 

“A distraction? You Beholder lot really are a mystery to me. I don’t see how reading those stories can be anything but exhausting.” Martin took Peter’s pawn like he did last game, and Peter didn’t even hide the grin as he took Martin’s knight in retaliation. 

“You wouldn’t. The Lonely is basically the opposite of The Eye, right?”

“In a simple way, yes. You need to be present to be seen. Something that has always bothered The Eye a great deal. It’s why I needed someone like you, someone on the inside who knew the call. I imagine Elias throws a fit each time you draw further from him.” 

As Peter started talking he made a sloppy move not paying attention. Martin pressed his rook forward and tapped the clock. “Check.”

“So it seems.” Martin grunted and went to stand when Peter’s fingers closed around his wrist. It wasn’t a strong grip but a warning, he stayed put. “Now that our game is over, let's discuss Jon, shall we?”

The Archivist

Love is a funny thing. It is a word that encompasses an umbrella of emotions. To protect, to cover, to cherish, to support. Martin could list the people he loved on one hand and the people he thought he loved on two. Boyfriends, friends, and even his mother. A blur of conflicted emotions with some gone and some just buried. Loving Jon was like none of them. Martin laid next to him staring at the scars that dappled his face. Silver pock marks in the moonlight that he had memorized the feeling of already. Had their first week in the cabin letting the world go quiet as they tried to heal all the wounds visible and not that their job had given them.

“I know you’re staring at me.” Jon turned, pressing his face against Martin’s chest, already falling back to sleep. “I always know…” The thought ended with nothing else, and Martin ran his fingers through Jon’s hair wrapping a strand around his index finger. He had more grey than he did a few years ago. Sometimes he wondered if Jon had just dyed it when it was shorter, and the habit had fallen to the wayside like everything else did these days. He was thinner too not that Jon was ever a big guy, but Martin could feel his ribs through his shirt where they pressed together. He closed his eyes and rested his chin on Jon’s head and tried to ignore the need to pull away. To sink back and let this connection rot and fade away. A lingering infection Peter had left him with. 

“Martin-” Jon pulled away and looked up at him squinting in the dark. “You’re loud.” There was an edge of bite to his voice, but Martin just fell onto his back, tugging Jon with him. 

They didn’t fit together like people do in romance novels or movies. Jon was all skin and bone and Martin liked to sprawl in his sleep spoiled by the queen he splurged on for his flat. They usually woke up apart save for an ankle touching leg or arms reaching out and bumping elbows. But the moments before sleep when they could just cuddle and not think were Martin’s favorite part of the night. When he just needed to feel Jon’s weight to remind himself he was there, they were safe, and they were trying to move on. 

“Martin.” Jon said again and he cupped Martin’s face this time. His hands shook now, have since The Circus and The Unknowing. Martin covered those hands and looked up at Jon where he crowded over him. The light of the moon sliding through the window making white pinpricks in his eyes. He looked intense like this, gaunt, serious, and wide eyed. Like he could see right through Martin even though he would never use his powers on him without his explicit permission.

“I’m fine, Jon.” 

“I don’t need to see anything to know that’s a lie.” Martin turned his head and kissed the curve of Jon’s palm where there was the scar of another’s hand to avoid answering. “Please Martin. I don’t like not knowing.” 

“I’m scared.” 

“Of me?” 

There was a clock ticking in the living room. A heavy grandfather that doubled as a secret gun rack as Martin had unwillingly found out while trying to fix the time. Martin tapped out the ticks on Jon’s bare shoulder. “I don’t think so, I think I’m just scared all the time.” Four bells rang. It was probably closer to two am, the useless old thing. 

“I’m sorry.” 

Martin thought about love and fear. About spiders in gardens and empty cabinets. About two good friends and what it means to outlive them. About isolation and someone caring enough to reach out first. “I think I love you.” 

“Oh.” 

“Oh?” 

Jon threaded his fingers with Martin’s and when morning comes they will be on opposite ends of the bed. Jon will find him each time he feels like he can’t breathe, and in return he will rub Jon’s temples when the migraines inevitably start. They will play their ramshackle version of house and he will try to ignore the urge to let this fade away. To still be present enough to hear the soft, “I love you too.” Jon whispers before falling back asleep in his arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this! This is my first time writing for TMA so I hope I did them justice! I think Martin is a neat character and actually wouldn't mind doing something similar with Jon too. 
> 
> If you enjoyed this please leave a kudo/comment and stay safe during this crazy time!


End file.
